


When Your Mind Is Made Up

by ElvenSemi



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Death, End Game, F/M, Secret Santa trade, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvenSemi/pseuds/ElvenSemi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: *Listen to When Your Mind Is Made Up (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fqeW3UqjMw) and write about a time when Lavellen does something heroic to help/save Solas/FH, but that has a bitter-sweet ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Your Mind Is Made Up

Lavellan poked uselessly at her breakfast. If anyone noticed that she wasn’t really eating anymore, no one commented. No one commented on much of anything, anymore. She wasn’t sure if no one knew what she was going through, or if everyone knew and just didn’t want to talk about it. They tiptoed around her and carefully phrased their sentences, as if she were made of glass. 

These days, she wasn’t even sure why she was still here. Did the Inquisition need her anymore, truly? It was a finely polished war machine, and she found that she hated it, a little. But there was simply nowhere else to go. No vallaslin meant no home. No Solas meant no escape. 

He’d left. She hadn’t even been surprised, just… Resigned. Leliana couldn’t find him. That town he’d said he was from, it was ancient, and Lavellan didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it sooner. She should have known when he first strolled into her dreams as if there was nothing to it. She should have known at the Temple of Mythal, when Abelas ignored her Mythal-marked face to focus on Solas. She should have known when he cradled the broken orb. But it wasn’t until after that she actually realized, at least partially because when he was around, her mind was lost in a fog of contentment. There were so many mysteries to solve. She hadn’t wanted Solas to be one of them. 

“Inquisitor!” 

The sudden voice jogs Lavellan out of her maudlin thoughts. 

“We’ve got movement at the Temple of Andruil.” 

Just like that, Lavellan was on her feet, hand grasping the staff that never seemed to leave her side. “Tell me.” Her voice was clipped, short, as she moved towards the war room. It’d been her idea to locate and watch as many Elven temples as possible. He probably wouldn’t go back to Mythal, Solasan, Dirthamen, and she knew that, but she placed watches on them anyway, and on any other place she could find. 

She knew him. And now it would pay off. It had to. 

Leliana’s words rushed over her as she donned her traveling armor. Smoke, a small fire, abandoned by the time a scout had gotten there. But this was closer than they’d ever been. 

“Tell the spies to stay back. I don’t want him spooked,” she snapped. “I’m going.” 

“Who are you taking?” 

Lethanna scowled at her, although she didn’t deserve it. “Who would I possibly bring, Leliana? Cole will be coming, I’m sure. I’m going. That’s all.” 

She wasn’t certain she was a good Inquisitor these days, but then, there wasn’t as much that needed inquisiting. The mage war was done, the rifts were all sealed. The only one capable of making more was her. The Inquisition didn’t need her, it just kept her out of pity, she was certain. 

She wasn’t even surprised to find Cole at the stables, a horse already saddled. 

-

This was actually her first time at the temple of Andruil. It was deep in the Korcari Wilds, and there just hadn’t been an excuse. She was glad to have one now, even if this turned out to be a false alarm. 

“How about it, Cole?” she whispered. “Do you hear anyone?” 

“Ancient, cold, hurting… Familiar.” 

“Is that a person, or the place?” she pressed, but Cole just shook his head. Her frown deepens, but she heads towards the temple. If he’s here, he’s up to something. Lavellan would find out. 

-

“Up to something” turned out to be a mighty understatement. As soon as she stepped into the temple, Lavellan was aware that there was some weird shit going on. The Veil wasn’t thin, so much as it was _rippling_. She’d never felt anything quite like it before. 

Movement focused her thoughts into the now. A humanoid figure, darting through the dust-filled air. Without even listening to Cole’s rambling warning, she took off after it, staff gripped tightly in one hand, veilfire burning in the other. 

Before she caught more than a glimpse, she knew she had him. She could feel it in her bones, a rising crescendo, just before the crash of a tidal wave. It was him. It was him, and she would get answers. 

She was so busy tearing after him, she almost didn’t notice when she charged into a much larger room, almost like an amphitheater. It was too large to see the edges, even with the light of the veilfire. _Too many places to hide,_ she thought to herself, squinting around in the green-tinted light. She seemed to be in the middle of some sort of circle. And were those… those artifacts looked awfully familiar… She reached out towards one, slowly, and… 

Then the whole world lit up. 

She swore, covering her eyes belatedly, but she didn’t need to see to realize what was going on. The mark on her hand was going wild, cracking and sparking at a rift in the Veil. She hadn’t seen one in months. Still half blind, she reached out to it, preparing to flip it inside out, heal the wound and mend the scar in the Veil. But the second she reached her arm out, she knew something was wrong. 

She felt a tugging, a pulling, like something was trying to tear her life out through her arm. She struggled back against it, yanking and pulling and _tearing_. She could feel the world unraveling like a ball of twine, but it took her a moment to realize why. The Veil. She was tearing apart the veil! But she couldn’t stop, the second she tried, she could feel herself beginning to unravel in its stead. 

And so she tore it. She shredded into strings, and balled them up. Spirits soared through the growing hole, but it wasn’t like the Breach. There was no pulling, only emptiness where there had once been a wall. 

And then, it was over, but there was no silence, no stillness. Everything was chaos, and she could only feel the force of the Veil’s power inside her, a ball of shredded string threatening to burst her. She began to fall, but familiar arms caught her. 

“I’m sorry, vhenan.” Her eyes snapped open. She viewed the man she loved through a sickish green tint. “We have to go, now! I will explain everything, I promise.” 

She’d heard that before. She opened her mouth to speak, but could almost feel energy thrusting towards the opening. She shut her jaw quickly, locking it shut. Solas was dragging her, and her numbed legs could not fight it. 

“The Veil had to be destroyed.” His voice was breathless, scared, but still the voice she remembered in her dreams. This almost felt like a dream, but there was no way it could be. “Without it, there could be understanding between spirits and mortals. No more possessed mages, no more spirits turned demons from binding. But it is what held the elven gods in place. Without it, they will-“ 

There was a great rumbling then, and Lavellan already knew what was happening. She could feel it. The Fade mingled with the world, and her mark was almost screaming. Power over the Veil, power over the Fade, what power would it have when the Veil was no more and the Fade was everywhere? 

_Imagine if spirits were not a rarity but a part of our natural world like... a fast-flowing river._

_A world where imagination defines reality, where spirits are as common as trees or grass._

“Fen’Harel! You traitorous bastard! I know you’re here!” 

The screech was inhuman, but it did not belong to a spirit. There were spirits everywhere, and Lavellan was aware of each of them as well as she was aware of her own body. Solas’ face paled even further and he clutched her tighter to him. Cowering behind a wall… What was he… 

Understanding dawned on her. 

“Fen’Harel,” she said slowly, power spilling from her lips as she spoke, curling wisps of green opalescence. 

He looked at her, sadly. “Yes,” was all he said. 

She pushed him off of her, and stood. He made a gasping noise as she stepped out from behind the wall, but he did not follow her. She stepped forward, towards the shouting. 

They were elves, but they were not elves. In the way she was lesser than Abelas, Abelas would be lesser to them. They were… more. As her eyes traced from one to the next, she found she knew them. She should. She’d spent her whole life worshipping them. Her eyes focused on the god that must have been Andruil, and for the first time, she felt pleased that Fen’Harel had stolen away her vallaslin. The elf woman looked mad with rage. 

“Where is Fen’Harel, mortal?” the god raged. “We know he is here! We will have our revenge for locking us away for so long.” 

Lavellan eyed them, surprised at her calm. It had to be the power pulsing inside of her, bursting her at the seams. She could feel nothing else. “Fen’Harel is beyond your reach.” 

The gods snarled. “No one is beyond our reach now! This world will know us again!” The god reached out towards Lavellan, surely to kill her first mortal in centuries. 

She would never get the chance. 

Lavellan held up her marked hand, and it burst open, threads of burning green light racing out of where her arm should have ended. 

“You will not touch him,” she announced, her voice echoing through the ruined temple. Power spilled from between her lips as regularly as it spun out of her hand. “You will touch no one.” 

The gods swarmed towards her, but they would never reach her. The power inside began to unravel, bursting out of her like a torrent. It wrapped around the gods, spinning them up like a cocoon, until all that could be heard was their screaming. 

“The elves will never be slaves to you again.” The cocoon wound itself shut, the last of the burning power leaving her ruined arm. But she was not finished. “Fen’Harel is right. Without the veil, there is, perhaps, a possibility of peace. But not with you. You are relics of a bygone era. We are better than you. We can move on. We can change.” 

She was used to the sensation of ripping through the veil, practiced in winding the powers of the Fade to her desire. This was like that, only more. She was not ripping through the veil to touch the Fade. She was ripping through existence, to reach something beyond. Not this world, not the Fade, not their now-intermingling energies. Beyond. Only darkness. She tore through to it, and she stuffed the screaming, trapped gods through. She wrenched it shut. 

No more screaming. 

She felt… empty. She couldn’t feel the spirits pulsing around her anymore. The burning power inside of her was gone. She looked down at her left arm… at the shredded remnants thereof, the parts that weren't blackened tainted a sickly green.

Oh, fuck. 

She fell, and once more, she found herself caught by familiar arms. There was one god she hadn’t tucked into the nothingness between worlds. One she had missed. 

“Fen’Harel,” she said out loud. 

“Vhenan,” he choked. “What… what have you done?” 

“I could feel them, Solas. They were twisted. They would have wreaked havoc. There would have been no peace.” 

“But… how…” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, shoving against him with her ruined stump of an arm, oozing blackened blood onto his shirt. “You pulled me back into this, but why didn’t you just _tell_ me?! There, by the waterfall, you could’ve… we could’ve…” 

“I couldn’t, vhenan. If I had stayed with you, I would never have mustered up the will to do what needed to be done. And I knew, when I released the gods, they would surely destroy me. It had to be done. To save the People, I had to… I tried to use the artifacts. I told you they strengthened the Veil. I lied. They did so much more. But I still couldn’t tear down the Veil; I needed the mark. I need the orb.” 

“Yours,” she choked out. “The damned orb was yours.” 

“It was, vhenan. I’m sorry… Ir abelas, I’m so sorry.” 

“You are right. But you were also wrong.” She let out a light sigh, breath escaping her lungs that might never return to them. “Perhaps there can be peace, with the spirits here. Cole is here. He can help; he can teach them. But, foolish wolf, the gods should have stayed buried.” 

“I had no choice! Without them, the People-“ 

“The People will survive. They always have. We have changed, and perhaps we have weakened. But we are still the People.” She let out a strangled gasp, pain wracking her body. 

“Hold still, vhenan, I must heal you! I-“ 

“Hold, Fen’Harel. There is no healing this.” 

“What did you _do_ , vhenan,” he whispered again. 

“I did not tear the Veil down and let it fall in tatters. I collected the threads. When I saw the gods, I knew I could not let them wander the world. I feared the devastation they might cause. I wrapped them in the power of the Veil. I tore a hole in the Fade, in reality itself, and I locked them away. Somewhere… somewhere dark. Somewhere they can never be reached.” 

“Vhenan, you have to let me-“ 

“ _No,_ Solas. The power of the Veil shredded me, tore me bloody inside. I will die. And when I die, it will be over. It will finally be over. No one will be able to reach the gods. You can… you can move on. Tell the People who you are. You have power now. Show them, make them believe. They will fear you, but they will listen. The People need you, Dread Wolf.” 

He clutched her against him, shaking his head. “But I need _you_ , vhenan.” 

She smiled, a half-cocked grin as her eyes began to glaze over. “In another world, my love.” 

He stayed there, holding his vhenan, long after her own stopped beating.


End file.
